U.S.
District Judge Paul Friedman ruled against the National Archives refusing to
dismiss the lawsuit we filed to obtain Hillary Clinton's Health Care Task Force
records from the Clinton Presidential Library. Judge Friedman also denied
the Archives' separate motion to stay (or delay) the lawsuit for one year and,
adding insult to injury, chastised the Archives for not being better prepared
to handle open record requests for the Clinton Presidential Library.

Ouch.

The
National Archives filed its failed motion to dismiss the lawsuit on the grounds
that Judicial Watch's original Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request was
overly broad. In the alternative, the Archives asked the court to stay
the lawsuit for one year, citing a lack of resources and a backlog of
requests. Judge Friedman rejected both requests. Here’s a quick
excerpt from Judge Friedman’s ruling (which you can read in its entirety here):

"[The National Archives] argues that
[Judicial Watch's] request is inadequate because it is overbroad...otherwise
valid FOIA requests are not overbroad or unreasonable simply because they seek
a very large number of documents…[The Archives] should have been better
prepared to process the large number of FOIA requests it received upon making
President Clinton’s records available…The Court will deny defendant's request
for a stay of one year, and instead grant a stay of six months. Defendant
is ordered to provide the Court with a status report regarding the processing
of responsive documents approximately thirty days before the expiration of the
stay."

So
why are we after Hillary’s health care records?

Because
we feel it is important for the American people to have the full story of
Hillary Clinton’s time in the White House. (She is arguably the most
powerful member of the U.S. Senate, and, of course, maintains even higher
aspirations.) As we’ve argued many times, Hillary Clinton was more
corrupt as a co-president than first lady and these records relate to Senator
Clinton’s most infamous policy initiative, her failed attempt to implement a
government takeover of the nation’s healthcare system.

Our
investigation already uncovered
documents that show how Hillary Clinton and the Clinton administration
approached health care reform – secrecy, smears, and the misuse of government
computers to track private and political information on citizens.

So
far, a small category of Health Care Task Force-related documents have been
released at the Clinton Presidential library, but the majority of these records
have not been disclosed. You may recall that the National Archives has
admitted in correspondence to Judicial Watch that there are approximately
3,022,030 textual records, 2,884 pages of electronic records, 1,021
photographs, 3 videotapes and 3 audiotapes that must be reviewed.

With
respect to this ruling, we are pleased the court saw through the National
Archives' feeble attempt to stonewall the release of these records. It is
time for the National Archives to stop stonewalling and to start complying with
the law. In the meantime, we expect that the Clintons and the Bush White
House will expedite the release of these documents as well.

We have implemented a new commenting system. To use it you must login/register with disqus. Registering is simple and can be done while posting this comment itself. Please contact gzenone [at] horowitzfreedomcenter.org if you have any difficulties.